30th July 2019 Still waiting for rain.

*

Tuesday 30th 67-77F, bright but rather cloudy. Thunder and cloudbursts promised, again. A clockwise walk around the block in light traffic. About 3 miles in warm 70F conditions. The verges are becoming quite luxuriant.

Another person has been injured by an electric scooter. One of those idiotic cycle lanes where buses stop to allow passengers to alight. Straight into the teeth of passing cyclists. The law says that cyclists must slow right down or stop and wait for the bus passengers to clear the cycle lane. This El-scooterist may have been ignorant of the law.  Or just plain ignorant. There's a lot of it about.

The law also says that cars must stop at crossings. This assumes that all car drivers will obey the law. The law does not allow for ignorant car drivers. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Common sense is often enough. This assumes that every ignorant twit has at least some common sense. This is patently not true. The world only keeps turning by averaging out the "entitled" ignoramuses by sheer force of numbers. That still doesn't stop most prisons from being heavily oversubscribed. This, despite the excess of ambulance chasers in the world.

An afternoon ride to the shops. Only 7 miles. Rather warm. It was very odd: The Trykit felt distinctly skittish. I stopped and checked all the bare brazing joints. Counted the wheels to be sure they were all still there. All seemed normal enough. I have had [what I presumed to be] school kids loosen the front Q/R a couple of times as they competed for the qualification heats at the Idiocy Olympics. They used to mass around the supermarket bike racks after school sometimes. But they are on their summer holidays at the moment. So none are about. I presume the perps are all competing for individual medals abroad. The trike seemed to settle down after it had passed the formal inspection. Weird.

19.30 and it is getting very dark. It can't just be the dust from the harvesters. Can it? The forecast is for thunder and downpours but it hasn't happened yet.

Wednesday 31st 65-67F, bright but rather cloudy. They have had heavy rain elsewhere but we are still waiting. The Head Gardener's rain collection containers were barely damp this morning. Yet another day with warnings of heavy rain hanging over us. Famous last words. I had just reached my exit when it started raining. I should have known better. The whole western sky was navy blue and black.

Fortunately I reached home again without too much drama except for a couple of deranged lunatics [blind] cornering at 60mph. The clipped beech hedge meets the road just there. So there is literally nowhere for me to retreat further from the traffic. Being deluded retards they always use a "racing line" which clips the inside of every inside corner. Thereby denying themselves the ability to extend their braking distance to the maximum.

Of course the hedge is completely impenetrable to their X-ray vision. Particularly at ten mph above the national speed limit. So they would never see the several cars leaving the houses situated just around the corner as they leave on their own, morning run. Before they are hit broadside on.

But what are the lives of a few children on their way to school? When the driver's need to have fun on the way to work excludes all else. After all, they have their air bags to protect them. So further brain damage is very unlikely in a side impact with another vehicle.

Besides, they have insurance against that sort of thing. It's not as if the insurance company gives a shit if drivers are lower achieving sociopaths. They are entitled to drive any way they like. And do. The anonymity of vehicle ownership allows even the dumbest of drivers to go unnoticed amongst the generally appalling average. Who is going to report their neighbour if they drive like a drunk?

It rained until 11am. Followed by showers. We missed all the cloudbursts which caused flooded roads across Denmark.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

*